In the morning he called, but others had been before him, and the drawing-room was well supplied with loungers. He staid as long as decency would permit; but Miss Leslie was not at all cordial in her manner toward him, and the "dear five hundred friends" kept coming and going, so that no opportunity offered for the explanation. "I will go again this evening," said he to himself; and so he did. Emma stood at the window, beside a stand of magnificent plants, whose blossoms filled the room with fragrance. The lamps had not been lighted, and the moonlight fell like a halo of glory around her, as she stood in sad reverie that cast a pensive shade over her face, usually so brilliant in its beauty. So absorbed was she, that she did not hear the door open, and was unconscious of Saville's presence till he was at her side.
"You received me coldly, fair lady, this morning, so that I came back to see if you are offended with me," said he, as she turned to receive him.
"And I, in my turn, ask you the same question, or else why have you absented yourself so long?"
"I was not offended—ah, no!" said Saville, dropping the tone of forced gayety in which he had at first spoken, "but can you not understand why I have thus exiled myself? Did you not know it was that I feared you might despise me—you from whom more than from any one else I desired esteem, admiration—love." The last word was spoken in a lower tone, and he looked at her appealingly, as if to ask forgiveness for having uttered it. For one instant he met the gaze of Emma's dark blue eyes, and he must have read something there he did not expect to find, for the expression of his own changed into one so hopeful and earnest that Emma's sunk beneath its light. And when he drew Emma into a seat beside him, and in a few rapid words told her what in fact she knew before, how long and how well he had loved her. I don't know what she said, for, reader, I came away then.
But I do know that one morning, six months after, some carriages went from Mr. Leslie's mansion to the church, and came back filled with a party looking most auspiciously happy, and that some hours after, as Edward was conducting his Cousin Emma to a traveling carriage, which stood at the door, he said, "So you and Saville have changed positions, and you are henceforth to obey. What a tyrant I would be, were I in his place. Pray does this morning's act cancel former obligations?"
"The contract is unbroken," said Saville, answering for his bride, and producing a locket containing the ringlet—"here is the token that renders the vow perpetual."